It's rare to get a serious interview about an Adam McKay movie. Whenever he teams up with Will Ferrell, their press conferences turn into comedy improv sessions. With Anchorman it was McKay, Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and David Koechner riffing. For Step Brothers it was McKay, Ferrell and John C. Reilly goofing off. For The Other Guys, McKay and Ferrell got Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton and Eva Mendes in on the joke.

"We all like to smoke out," McKay told the press. "We like to burn it down on a pretty weekly bases. We all meet, Michael Keaton has a van, a conversion van. We would meet with Michael and just burnin' rope like six clouds of smoke. I'm sorry, I don't know what you're looking for but this is how it happened."

Nobody believes the actors were getting high, but they also didn't get any real answers about the making of The Other Guys. McKay directed the spoof of buddy cop movies, where Ferrell and Wahlberg play desk cops who get ignored because some hot shot buddies are the star heroes of the police force. Keaton plays the captain and Mendes plays Ferrell's wife. The other guys have to stop a ponzi schemer when the hero cops don't come through.

In private, McKay actually can take things seriously. He is a filmmaker who's made his fourth movie, plus Funny or Die shorts, producing other movies and writing for SNL. Keep him away from the comedians and it's possible to really talk shop. Of course, "shop" for Adam McKay is still funny stuff.

FT: It seems like every press conference for your movies turns into a riff session.

AM: I know, I'm sorry.

FT: Do you guys plan that?

AM: No, we do not at all. It's just we can't [help it.] It's such a formal setting, a press conference, it's just too much fun to fuck with so we always end up and then Will and myself, you add Keaton to the mix and Eva likes to play. It's just too much fun so we can never resist but I always feel vaguely bad because I know you guys've gotta get real answers and it's like we're up there dicking around. But you get the 1:1s so you get them one way or the other.

FT: What do you expect the stodgy old journalists to write?

AM: Well, they know we do comedies. I wouldn't think they're that surprised. If it was the press conference for Inception and we acted like that it would be full out out of line but I would assume they'd somewhat guess that we like to joke around.

FT: What are you favorite action movie cliches?

AM: My favorite that actually is a cliche but I also think is cool is the moment of realization where they realize it's bigger than all of us. I always love that. The end of Three Days of the Condor, the end of JFK, French Connection. They always have that moment of, "Holy shit, this goes all the way to the top." That's probably my all time favorite.

FT: Do you also hate when they start at the end and go back and keep coming back to the end?

AM: That was the [Steve] Coogan line, right? You know, hey, that's been done really well. That's a legitimate narrative device. It just made us laugh that the guy was going to recount the entire conspiracy in that manner. So I can't quite say I hate it. I mean, Rashomon, movies like that are amazing with it. Sometimes it can get a little bit creaky, yeah.

FT: Well, Rashomon is multiple perspectives. Just starting at the end and flashing back has become a crutch.

AM: It kind of has. It's true, another one there's a big knock on which I actually do like is narration, people don't like. I like narration. I've heard people say, "Well, in Apocalypse Now, you know he lives." I'm like eh, but you forget about it.

FT: Narration doesn't mean they lived. Sunset Boulevard.

AM: That's true, that's true. Very good.

FT: So the joke about starting at the end and flashing back, was that Coogan's line or was it always in the script?

AM: That was not in the script. That was his. He came up with that.

FT: Why was Cobra the main poster on Wahlber's wall and his main reference for awesome cops?

AM: We always do that. We always throw a poster up in a scene. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't. It was huge. It turned out to be way more prominent. We had one in Talladega Nights. Ricky Bobby's billiards room had Road House or Over the Top. That's just a little treat for us. I didn't expect it to be that featured but that is an amazing movie, Cobra.

FT: Of all the cops he might have looked up to, why Marion Cobretti?

AM: Cobretti, of course. That's it, man. I love that the name of the Cobra yet they felt compelled to make his real name Cobretti. That's the sole reason I love the movie.

FT: Was this your chance to do the action you've always wanted to see?

AM: To some degree. Because you're doing comedy, you can't go full bore. There's some restrictions because if the action gets too cool and too long then it starts screwing with the audience's perspective. All of a sudden they're like, "Where's our head at?" You couldn't do full on Matrix seven minute sequences in this because it just doesn't fit. That having been said, absolutely, yes. I loved being able to shoot action. I loved being able to do a slo-mo shootout with a cool song playing. I loved seeing a van flip into an IMo camera. Yes, absolutely. I'm a full out movie geek. I like all kinds of movies so it was a blast to do that.

FT: I can't believe I've enver seen a wrecking ball scene in a movie before.

AM: We talked about that at length. We had exactly that discussion. We said, "Oh my God. This seems like such a simple idea. Has this ever happened?" We literally had an intern go and research it just to make sure we weren't bumping into some clich. The intern's like, "I looked at all the major action [movies]. No, I've never seen it." We were shocked.

FT: But I can trust your research. If you couldn't find one, then I certainly can't.

AM: It's possible me missed one but it is kind of incredible.

FT: But even if there's one you missed, then everyone has missed it.

AM: I would think, yeah.

FT: Was the pitch "will Ferrell as... a cop?"

AM: No, no. There's always those myths like Talladega Nights was "Will Ferrell... NASCAR." It's actually not true. We always write. We have a two page treatment, we go through the whole story, we talk about ideas, we talk about the style. This one was "Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are cops". The pitch was there are two star cops on the force. These are the guys that sit in the desk next to them, the other guys.

FT: That's still a good high concept pitch though, just a little more complicated than "Will Ferrell as a..."

AM: I wish it was that easy. That would be a good world. Maybe Will Smith could do that. There's only four actors who could get away with that.

FT: But Will Smith as most things feels like "Of course Will Smith would be that." Will Ferrell as most things is "That'll be funny."

AM: That's true. The fact that he was the other guy is why you saw it right away. We joked he was like Keith Olbermann with a gun.

FT: Do you have an opinion on the financial industry?

AM: I don't even look at the financial industry corruption as a right wing/left wing issue. It's pretty much a matter of fact that we deregulated monopoly corporations way too much. So the financial industry's falling apart, health care industry's falling apart, defense is corrupt. Every monopoly corporation has gotten way too much power. The proof's in the putting, like BP leaking oil into the gulf, the financial world collapsing, mortgages. Everything, we need to tighten our belts quite a bit. Those rules were there for a reason from FDR on and our economy worked great. When they stripped them out, everything fell apart.

FT: I wasn't trying to pin you to right or left. I just meant putting that subplot in a comedy, do you have an opinion yourself?

AM: Yeah, I'm sorry. When you say opinion it right away made me think political opinion so maybe that's not what you meant but my opinion is they are seriously underregulated. That is my opinion.

FT: How did we get here though? If someone like Bernie Madoff says he has a big plan to make you lots of money, or a bank says you can get a home lone that's all interest, shouldn't we assume that doesn't sound right?

AM: Yeah, but here's the truth. Most people aren't savvy about that kind of stuff. Sadly, the power of marketing and advertising is way more powerful than people think. You can convince people to kind of do anything.

FT: Just the fact they're selling something seems suspicious.

AM: You would hope but the dream of owning a home overshadows that suspicion for a lot of people. In fact, any con man will tell you, for all the classic cons, the trick is you have to offer something that's bigger than the suspicion. That's when cons start to kind of tilt. You literally could argue that's the entire American economy right now is driven on that con. It'll happen though. Things keep getting this bad, eventually at one point we'll go back to that FDR moment and go, "Oh, wait a minute. We needed these regulations."